Team Up Against Diabetes

We're committed to the health and well-being of communities around the world, with a focus on diabetes prevention.

It has been called the epidemic of the 21st century. Diabetes now affects 422 million people – that’s 1 person in 11. And numbers are expected to double in the next 20 years. Diabetes is a serious condition that can lead to even worse health problems.

But the good news is that the most common form of diabetes – type 2 – can be managed or even prevented.

At Sun Life, we care deeply about the impact of diabetes on our Clients, Employees and communities.

Sun Life Financial Team Up Against Diabetes Regional grant program

Sun Life has launched a North America-wide diabetes grant program. This initiative provides program support to registered charities in the U.S. and Canada focused on diabetes awareness, prevention, education and care.

Sun Life’s commitment to the fight against diabetes supports our goal of creating a healthier workforce and empowering our Clients, Employees, and Communities to protect what they love most in their lives by mitigating the risk factors and effects of this disease.

JDRF

Sun Life Financial is a National Sponsor of the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) Walk to Cure Diabetes and the Presenting Sponsor of the JDRF Revolution Ride to Defeat Diabetes. Held in over 70 communities across Canada, these annual events raise much-needed funds for JDRF to help find a cure and to increase education and awareness of type 1 diabetes.

Diabetes Canada Prevention campaign

Diabetes or prediabetes affects 1 in 3 Canadians. To mark Diabetes Awareness Month, Sun Life teamed up with Diabetes Canada to support the Diabetes Awareness campaign. Throughout November, we encourage Canadians to take 2 minutes and complete the simple, online, CANRISK type 2 diabetes risk assessment at www.SunLifeAgainstDiabetes.ca.

CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation CIRCUIT programfor Quebec youth at risk

Nearly one-third of Quebec children are either overweight or obese – 3 times more than only 30 years ago. Since 2013, Sun Life has donated $750,000 to the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation’s CIRCUIT program, which promotes healthy lifestyles for young people at risk of developing diabetes or heart disease.

This donation is expected to assist more than 200,000 families in Quebec over several years.

Play for Prevention program for Indigenous youth

Sun Life Financial has teamed up with RIGHT TO PLAY to use sport and play to educate and empower children and youth living in adversity to build essential life-skills and better futures, while driving lasting social change through its PLAY (Promoting Life-skills in Aboriginal Youth) Play For Prevention program (PFP). PFP is a component of the PLAY program and aims to address the gaps in type 2 diabetes prevention among indigenous youth by focusing on education, awareness and the promotion of healthy and active living.

Sun Life’s Team Up Against Diabetes grant program

At Sun Life, we are committed to the prevention of diabetes and its related complications. Since we announced our support of the cause in late 2012, we have proudly committed over $22 million towards diabetes awareness, prevention, education, and care programs around the globe.

Sun Life launched a North American Team Up Against Diabetes grant program. In the United States, this initiative provides program support to 501(c)(3) charities that focus on:

diabetes prevention, awareness, education, and care

diabetes management

recovery and support from diabetes-related complications

obesity prevention

nutritional programs—education, management, and awareness

Sun Life’s commitment to the fight against diabetes supports our goal of creating a healthier workforce and empowering our Clients, employees, and communities to protect what they love most in their lives by mitigating the risk factors and effects of this disease.

YMCA of Greater Boston’s Diabetes Prevention Program

Since 2014, Sun Life has teamed up with the Boston Celtics to fight diabetes through the incentive-based community program Fit to Win and through a social fundraising and digital marketing campaign in the month of November called #SunLifeDunk4Diabetes.

The Fit to Win program pro¬motes the physical fitness and wellness of young people in Greater New England over a 4-week period. Youth participants in 3rd through 6th grades at the YMCA are rewarded for exercising daily and making healthy lifestyle choices.

In support of the YMCA of Greater Boston’s Diabetes Prevention Program, Sun Life donates $1,000 for every dunk made by a Boston Celtics player during November – Diabetes Awareness Month. So far, the #SunLifeDunk4Diabetes cam¬paign has raised $210,000.

American Diabetes Association Health Champion Designation program

Demonstrating a continued commitment to preventing diabetes, with a unique focus on creating a healthy workplace, Sun Life is proud to partner with the American Diabetes Association.

We support the Association’s Health Champion Designation program, which recognizes companies that have implemented an organizational culture of wellness, encompassing healthy eating and physical activity. Sun Life is proud to be a Health Champion ourselves and to promote this program to our employees, our Clients, and the communities where we live, work, and do business.

We also became a sponsor of the Association’s Tour de Cure bicycling rides in 2017: Wheels to Weston in Missouri and the Kennebunks Tour de Cure in Maine. Over 150 Sun Life employees, friends, and family participated, raising over $44,000.

Sun Life Malaysia’s Brighter You

Sun Life Malaysia’s Brighter You program donated $99,238 to Diabetes Malaysia to provide diabetic monitoring supplies to underprivileged adults and children with diabetes.

Brighter You also sponsored glucometers and free diabetes tests for HOPE Worldwide Malaysia as well as organizing children’s health talks, basketball clinics and dance fitness programs aimed at preventing diabetes through a healthy lifestyle.

The Philippines’ SunPIOLOgy Run

In the Philippines, where diabetes is expected to grow at one of the fastest rates in Asia, Sun Life teamed up with Filipino celebrity Piolo Pascual for the SunPIOLOgy Run, a fundraising fun run. The unique course had a variety of challenges along the route to raise awareness about diabetes. For example, runners needed to avoid obstacles such as fences designed like huge chocolate bars and drum barrels that looked like giant soft drink cans.

The SunPIOLOgy Run benefited a number of charitable partners focused on diabetes awareness and prevention, including the Institute for Studies on Diabetes Foundation (ISDFI).

Sun Life’s Hong Kong office sponsored a diabetes awareness campaign for the Asia Diabetes Foundation (ADF). Prevent the Preventable was developed to educate the public on the disease and the need to be screened, using various communication channels, including a new website and self-assessment app called RUBY (Risk Understanding By Yourself).

Sun Life also worked with the ADF to run 6 diabetes community outreach programs offering free screening tests.

According to the World Health Organization, Indonesia will see the number of citizens with diabetes rise to 21 million by 2030, an increase of 250% from 2000. Sun Life’s Indonesia office supports a diabetes education clinic at the University of Indonesia, which provides information for patients and their families so they can cope independently with the illness and help prevent complications.

Four new consultation rooms are being built and diabetes education material is being developed to increase patient knowledge.

Indonesia’s Jakarta Diabetes Walk

Sun Life Financial Indonesia supported the Jakarta Diabetes Walk, which was attended by doctors and dignitaries including Jakarta’s Deputy Governor, Djarot Saiful Hidayat.